A novel based on true events--William Johnson was Lincoln's mirror, not his shadow.

As Lincoln's personal barber and valet, Johnson did not influence the president by whispering in his ear; he was the living embodiment of the price paid trying to keep the Union together, a daily reminder that half measures were an insult to humanity. Because calculating the cost of peace is impossible, where humans enter the equation.

After escaping slavery, 25-year-old William Henry Johnson goes to the nation's capital as Abraham Lincoln's valet, hoping the new president will help him reunite his family. But when Lincoln chooses an expedient peace over freedom, Johnson's hopes and the war for emancipation may be doomed--unless Johnson can turn him from long-held prejudices and convince him to embrace equality. Changing Lincoln's heart and mind comes at a severe price.

Amid much controversy over the legacies of historical figures comes a novel that explores Lincoln's complex and evolving views on slavery, emancipation, abolition, and racial equality. But more than a Lincoln novel, it is the lost story of a young man who likely was more influential than any celebrated abolitionist when it came to turning Lincoln from a pragmatic segregationist to a champion of freedom and equality for all.